Terry Gilliam's "Jabberwocky" is a lot like "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" (1975) except that it's not very funny. Both parody medieval fables in a silly fashion, and "Jabberwocky" features several of Gilliam's fellow Python members, including Michael Palin as the protagonist. Indeed, the film was marketed in the United States based on this Monty Python connection--much to the understandable disappointment of audiences, then, having expected to see a production by the entire troupe. I'm disappointed, too, because I saw this with the expectation that it would have something to do with the titular poem from Lewis Carroll's book "Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There," but only the broad outline of the poem's plot--the least interesting thing about it--is retained here and, otherwise, the film is preoccupied with making fun of the Dark Ages.
The filmmakers seem to have taken "Dark Ages" literally, as the action here often takes place in shadows. Meanwhile, the castle crumbles around them. Actually, this picture is more interesting to look at than to listen to, and one gets the sense that Gilliam has always been a better production designer than a writer. He claims he wanted to get away from the sketch format of Monty Python here, but the results remain sketchy, just not funny. Many of the jokes are piss-poor toilet humor. Others, oddly enough, are economic gags. Palin's Dennis frequently gets into pratfall and debasement-based humor from his interest in a Taylorism-type efficiency in business coming into conflict with the aristocracy, guilds and artisan insistence upon craftsmanship of the Middle Ages. Even the potato business is over its value being relative. And, there's the country-and-city dichotomy, with the apparent abundance of food with the Fishfinger family while those within the city walls risk starvation. But, mostly, the people and settings here are brutal, if only for comic effect.
"Jabberwocky" begins with a butterfly or moth--presumably the Caterpillar from "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" transformed--beginning to narrate Carroll's poem before Terry Jones squashes him with his foot (the image of the foot, by the way, being reminiscent of Gilliam's animation for "Monty Python's Flying Circus"). Jones, then, puts a rabbit in a bag with a fox, whereupon the creature reminiscent of the White Rabbit from the book is assuredly killed. This opening sequence sums up Gilliam's treatment of Carroll's works quite succinctly, and when he's not butchering the Alice books, he's treating the Jabberwock as if it were the shark from "Jaws" (1975). My recommendation is to read the poem instead.
The filmmakers seem to have taken "Dark Ages" literally, as the action here often takes place in shadows. Meanwhile, the castle crumbles around them. Actually, this picture is more interesting to look at than to listen to, and one gets the sense that Gilliam has always been a better production designer than a writer. He claims he wanted to get away from the sketch format of Monty Python here, but the results remain sketchy, just not funny. Many of the jokes are piss-poor toilet humor. Others, oddly enough, are economic gags. Palin's Dennis frequently gets into pratfall and debasement-based humor from his interest in a Taylorism-type efficiency in business coming into conflict with the aristocracy, guilds and artisan insistence upon craftsmanship of the Middle Ages. Even the potato business is over its value being relative. And, there's the country-and-city dichotomy, with the apparent abundance of food with the Fishfinger family while those within the city walls risk starvation. But, mostly, the people and settings here are brutal, if only for comic effect.
"Jabberwocky" begins with a butterfly or moth--presumably the Caterpillar from "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" transformed--beginning to narrate Carroll's poem before Terry Jones squashes him with his foot (the image of the foot, by the way, being reminiscent of Gilliam's animation for "Monty Python's Flying Circus"). Jones, then, puts a rabbit in a bag with a fox, whereupon the creature reminiscent of the White Rabbit from the book is assuredly killed. This opening sequence sums up Gilliam's treatment of Carroll's works quite succinctly, and when he's not butchering the Alice books, he's treating the Jabberwock as if it were the shark from "Jaws" (1975). My recommendation is to read the poem instead.